According to Daoud Kuttab, Israel should relinquish her tight grip on security and try the one antidote for the violence in the Middle East that she has yet to try: speaking to the Hammas-run government in Gaza. Israel refuses to speak to the organization that has repeatedly admitted to committing acts of terror against her; that would include last Thursday’s murder of eight teenage boys studying in yeshiva (although Hamas suspiciously retracted their admission that they were in cahoots with the Palestinian gunman a few hours later). In a March 11th op-ed on the Jerusalem Post website, Kuttab explained his belief in the “futility of deterrence”. Tighter security in Gaza, he insisted, will only continue to lead to more violence against Israel and her citizens. Apparently, it is not enough that the Israeli government has allowed its continuously untrustworthy neighbors to build cities within a few feet of their own settlements- now, it must speak to a terrorist organization in order to reach peace.

One minor detail you left out, Kuttab: this same Hamas? It swore in Februrary 2006 that it would never recognize Israel.

Ah, but how quickly the world forgets. How quickly it forgets that only a few years ago we were promised peace if Israel left behind her greenhouses in Gush Katif, rolled her tanks out Gaza, gave back this prisoner, signed on that dotted line? Why is it, then, that the terror hasn’t stopped? Why is it that a few days ago, eight teenage boys, most of them under the age of eighteen, were murdered by a Palestinian gunman in their very own yeshiva? Why is it that Sderot is under a constant barrage of rockets? And why is it that world is shaking a finger at Israel? Is it any wonder that she has tightened her security- from Gaza to the Malcha Mall- over the past few months?

Sorry Kuttab, but something tells me that sitting down with Hamas to discuss peace prospects will prove as beneficial for Israel as pulling out of Gush Katif or disengaging from Gaza or giving back land after the war of (insert any war here) or… well you get my drift.